Chipotle Mexican Grill

Company Description

It's worth noting that the stock has both A shares and B shares available for ownership by individual investors. TMFBreakerRob, a staff member at Motley Fool Rule Breakers has summarized [1] the situation by stating, "I don't think it makes much difference which one you own, but if the two classes ever do get consolidated, it looks like the B owners will make out. His 5-point summary of the two classes of shares:

1) The B shares have more "weight" in voting than A shares, but otherwise are identical to A's.

2) Despite this, B shares trade at a discount to A shares, arguably an example of market inefficiency.

3) The discount varies over time. Nobody has published any analysis of how this trends.

4) Chipotle seems to be working on retiring at least some of the B shares and is investigating rolling the whole thing into one class. Don't count on it because agreements have to be made in order for the IRS to bless this.